Architecture and instruction set for implementing advanced encryption standard (aes)

ABSTRACT

A flexible aes instruction for a general purpose processor is provided that performs aes encryption or decryption using n rounds, where n includes the standard aes set of rounds {10, 12, 14}. A parameter is provided to allow the type of aes round to be selected, that is, whether it is a “last round”. In addition to standard aes, the flexible aes instruction allows an AES-like cipher with 20 rounds to be specified or a “one round” pass.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of prior co-pending U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 14/947,944, filed on Nov. 20, 2015, which is acontinuation of prior U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/100,970, filedon Dec. 9, 2013, now U.S. Pat. No. 9,230,120, which is a continuation ofprior U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/088,088, filed on Apr. 15,2011, now U.S. Pat. No. 8,634,550, which is a continuation of prior U.S.patent application Ser. No. 11/648,434, filed on Dec. 28, 2006, now U.S.Pat. No. 7,949,130, which is hereby incorporated herein by reference inits entirety and for all purposes.

FIELD

This disclosure relates to cryptographic algorithms and in particular tothe advanced encryption standard (AES) algorithm.

BACKGROUND

Cryptology is a tool that relies on an algorithm and a key to protectinformation. The algorithm is a complex mathematical algorithm and thekey is a string of bits. There are two basic types of cryptologysystems: secret key systems and public key systems. A secret key systemalso referred to as a symmetric system has a single key (“secret key”)that is shared by two or more parties. The single key is used to bothencrypt and decrypt information.

The Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), published by the NationalInstitute of Standards and Technology (NIST) as Federal InformationProcessing Standard (FIPS) 197 is a secret key system. AES is asymmetric block cipher that can encrypt and decrypt information.

Encryption (cipher) performs a series of transformations using thesecret key (cipher key) to transforms intelligible data referred to as“plaintext” into an unintelligible form referred to as “cipher text”.The transformations in the cipher include (1) Adding a round key (valuederived from the cipher key) to the state (a two dimensional array ofbytes) using a Exclusive OR (XOR) operation; (2) Processing the stateusing a non-linear byte substitution table (S-Box) (3) Cyclicallyshifting the last three rows of the state by different offsets; and (4)Taking all of the columns of the state and mixing their data(independently of one another) to produce new columns.

Decryption (inverse cipher) performs a series of transformations usingthe cipher key to transform the “cipher text” blocks into “plaintext”blocks of the same size. The transformations in the inverse cipher arethe inverse of the transformations in the cipher.

The Rijindael algorithm is specified in the AES standard to process datablocks of 128 bits, using cipher keys with lengths of 128, 192 and 256bits. The different key lengths are typically referred to as AES-128,AES-192 and AES-256.

The AES algorithm transforms the plaintext into cipher text or ciphertext into plaintext in 10, 12, or 14 consecutive rounds, with the numberof rounds dependent on the length of the key.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Features of embodiments of the claimed subject matter will becomeapparent as the following detailed description proceeds, and uponreference to the drawings, in which like numerals depict like parts, andin which:

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a system that includes an embodiment of aninstruction set extension for performing AES encryption and decryptionin a general purpose processor according to the principles of thepresent invention;

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of an embodiment of the processor shown inFIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating an embodiment of an executionunit 210 shown in FIG. 2 for performing AES encryption and decryptionaccording to the principles of the present invention; and

FIGS. 4A-4B is a flow graph illustrating the flow of an AES instructionthrough the execution unit shown in FIG. 3.

Although the following Detailed Description will proceed with referencebeing made to illustrative embodiments of the claimed subject matter,many alternatives, modifications, and variations thereof will beapparent to those skilled in the art. Accordingly, it is intended thatthe claimed subject matter be viewed broadly, and be defined only as setforth in the accompanying claims.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) algorithm is a compute intensivealgorithm that is typically performed in software or in a specialpurpose processor. Thus, encryption is typically only used forencrypting a subset of the information stored in computers, for example,information that may be classified as “top secret”. However, there is aneed to encrypt more of the information that is stored on computers. Forexample, if all information stored on a mobile computer was encrypted,this information would be protected in the event that the mobilecomputer was stolen.

An embodiment of the invention provides an instruction set extension forperforming AES encryption and decryption in a general purpose processor.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a system 100 that includes an embodiment ofan instruction set extension for performing AES encryption anddecryption in a general purpose processor according to the principles ofthe present invention. The system 100 includes a processor 101, a MemoryController Hub (MCH) 102 and an Input/Output (I/O) Controller Hub (ICH)104. The MCH 102 includes a memory controller 106 that controlscommunication between the processor 101 and memory 108. The processor101 and MCH 102 communicate over a system bus 116.

The processor 101 may be any one of a plurality of processors such as asingle core Intel® Pentium IV® processor, a single core Intel Celeronprocessor, an Intel® XScale processor or a multi-core processor such asIntel® Pentium D, Intel® Xeon® processor, or Intel® Core® Duo processoror any other type of processor.

The memory 108 may be Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM), Static RandomAccess Memory (SRAM), Synchronized Dynamic Random Access Memory (SDRAM),Double Data Rate 2 (DDR2) RAM or Rambus Dynamic Random Access Memory(RDRAM) or any other type of memory.

The ICH 104 may be coupled to the MCH 102 using a high speedchip-to-chip interconnect 114 such as Direct Media Interface (DMI). DMIsupports 2 Gigabit/second concurrent transfer rates via twounidirectional lanes.

The ICH 104 may include a storage I/O controller 110 for controllingcommunication with at least one storage device 112 coupled to the ICH104. The storage device may be, for example, a disk drive, Digital VideoDisk (DVD) drive, Compact Disk (CD) drive, Redundant Array ofIndependent Disks (RAID), tape drive or other storage device. The ICH104 may communicate with the storage device 112 over a storage protocolinterconnect 118 using a serial storage protocol such as, SerialAttached Small Computer System Interface (SAS) or Serial AdvancedTechnology Attachment (SATA).

The processor 101 includes an AES function 103 to perform aes encryptionand decryption operations. The AES function 103 may be used to encryptor decrypt information stored in memory 108 and/or stored in the storagedevice 112.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of an embodiment of the processor 101 shown inFIG. 1. Processor 101 includes a fetch and decode unit 202 for decodingprocessor instructions received from Level 1 (L1) instruction cache 202.Data to be used for executing the instruction may be stored in registerfile 208. In one embodiment, the register file 208 includes a pluralityof 128-bit registers, which are used by an aes instruction to store datafor use by the aes instruction.

In one embodiment, the register file is a group of 128-bit registerssimilar to the 128-bit MMX registers provided in Intel Pentium MMXProcessors that have a Streaming (Single Instruction Multiple Data(SIMD)) Extension (SSE) Instruction set. In a SIMD processor, data isprocessed in 128-bit blocks which may be loaded at one time.Instructions may be applied to a 128-bit block (16 bytes) in oneoperation.

The fetch and decode unit 202 fetches macroinstructions from L1instruction cache 202, decodes the macroinstructions and breaks theminto simple operations called micro operations (μops). The executionunit 210 schedules and executes the micro operations. In the embodimentshown, the aes function 103 in the execution unit 210 includes microoperations for the aes instruction. The retirement unit 212 writes theresults of the executed instructions to registers or memory.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating an embodiment of an executionunit 210 shown in FIG. 2 for performing AES encryption and decryptionaccording to the principles of the present invention.

After an aes instruction has been decoded by the fetch and decode unit206, the execution of the aes instruction by the execution unit 210involves performing the micro operations associated with the aesinstruction.

An AES instruction (macro instruction) to perform AES encryption ordecryption in the AES logic may be defined symbolically as:

REG[dest] = aes(REG[src],        key-size={128, 192, 256},       #rounds={1,10,12,14},        op={encrypt/decrypt},       special_last_round={true/false} )

The register file 304 has a plurality of 128-bit registers which may beused by the AES instruction. One of the 128-bit registers stores asource operand for the first aes round and another one of the 128-bitregisters stores the result of the aes instruction. The source operationis transformed in a number of rounds (1, 10, 12 or 14) to provide aresult which is stored in another register in the register file 304. Thesource operand may be 128-bit of plaintext to be encrypted using the keyor 128-bits of cipher text to be decrypted using the key.

Information to be encrypted or decrypted by the aes instruction isloaded into a source register 306 in the register file 304 prior toissuing the aes instruction. The key to be used to encrypt/decrypt theinformation in the source register 306 is stored in one or moreregisters in the register file. In the case of a 128-bit key, the entire128-bits of the key are stored in one of the 128-bit registers in theregister file 304, for example, register 308. For key sizes greater than128 bits, the most significant bits (greater than 128 bits) are storedin another 128-bit register, for example, register 310. The key sizeparameter for the aes instruction indicates whether the key is stored inone register or more than one register.

In one embodiment, register[0] 308 in the register file 308 is used tostore the least significant 128-bits of the key and register[1] 310 isused to store the most significant bits of a key size that is greaterthan 128-bits. The one or more registers in the register file 304 thatstore the key are not modified during the execution of the aesinstruction.

The key stored the register file is loaded into one or more of thetemporary key registers. In an embodiment in which each temporary keyregister has 128-bits, 128-bits of the key are stored in a firsttemporary key register 324 and the upper bits of the key greater than128-bits are stored in a second 128-bit temporary key register 326.Thus, a 256-bit key may be stored between the two temporary registerswith the least significant 128-bits stored in one of the temporary keyregisters, for example, Temp Key 0 324 and the most significant 128-bitsstored in the other 128-bit temporary key register, for example, tempkey 1 326.

AES has a fixed block size of 128 bits and a key size of 128, 192 or 256bits and operates on a 4×4 array of bytes (that is, 16 bytes (128-bitfixed block size)), which is referred to as the ‘state’. The AESalgorithm transforms a 128-bit plaintext block into a 128-bit block ofcipher text (encrypts) or a 128-bit block of cipher text into a 128-bitblock of plaintext (decrypts) in 10, 12, or 14 consecutive rounds, withthe number of rounds dependent on the key size (128, 192 or 256-bits).

The execution unit 210 retrieves the source operand and the key whichare stored in the register file 304 prior to performing encryption ordecryption using the micro operations for the aes instruction. In theembodiment shown, the source operand (128-bit block state) is stored inregister 306 and the key is stored in register(s) 308, 310 in theregister file 304. After the execution of the aes instruction iscomplete, the result is stored in register 312 in the register file 304.

The execution unit 210 includes two 128-bit temporary key registers 324,326 to temporarily store the key. The key is loaded into one or bothtemporary key registers 324, 326 from one or both registers 308, 310 inthe register file 304 dependent on the length of the key.

In order to reduce the memory required for storing the expanded keyassociated with the key, the execution unit 210 includes an on-the-flykey scheduler 300 that generates the portion of the expanded key (roundkey) that is used in the current round. The on-the-fly key scheduler 300expands the n-bytes of a key into b-bytes of an expanded key with thefirst n-bytes of the expanded key being the original key. For example,for a 128-bit key, the 128-bit key is expanded into a 176-bytesexpandedkey, that is, 11×16-bytes, with the first 16-bytes being the original128-bit key, and thus the number of rounds is 10. The 24 bytes of a192-bit key are expanded into 208 bytes (13×16 bytes) to provide 12“round keys” one for each of the 12 rounds and the 32 bytes of a 256-bitkey are expanded into 240 bytes (15×16 bytes) to provide 14 “round keys”one for each of the 14 rounds. Instead of pre-generating the expandedkey and storing it in a table, the on-the-fly key scheduler 300generates the “round key” on-the-fly, that is, as it is needed for thenext aes round.

Upon decoding an aes instruction, a number of parameters to be used tocontrol the flow in each aes round are stored in a control register 232.The parameters include the size of the key, number of rounds, the typeof operation and whether there is a special last round. The size of thekey may be 128-bits, 192-bits or 256-bits. The number of rounds to beperformed (n) may be 1, 10, 12 or 14. AES micro operations perform nrounds of AES accordingly based on the value of n. With a number ofrounds value of 10, 12, 14, the aes micro operations may perform thecurrent standard aes for key sizes 128-bits, 192-bits or 256-bits. Theoperation to be performed may be to encrypt or to decrypt. The speciallast round may be true or false. By allowing the type of round to beprogrammable an AES-like cipher with 20 rounds (with an AES-style lastround), or only a “one round” pass may be performed using the same aesinstruction and aes micro operations.

An aes round includes micro operations for the following stages: blockstate 314, s-box/inverse s-box 316, shift rows 316 and mix inverse, mixcolumns or null 320. The aes round performs the following:

In block state 314, the 128-bit input (state) to the aes round is addedwith a round key (128-bit portion of the expanded key associated withthe round) using bitwise XOR to produce a 128-bit intermediate value(state).

In the S-box/inverse S-box 316, each byte of this 128-bit intermediatevalue is substituted with another byte value that can be stored andretrieved from a lookup table also referred to as a substitution box or“S-Box”. The S-box takes some number of input bits, m, and transformsthem into some number of output bits, n and is typically implemented asa lookup table. A fixed lookup table is typically used. This operationprovides non-linearity through the use of the inverse function overGalois Field (GF)(2⁸). For example, the n-bit output may be found byselecting a row in the lookup table using the outer two bits of them-bit input, and selecting the column using the inner bits of the m-bitinput.

In Shift Rows 318, the results from S-box/inverse S-box 316 passesthrough a bit-linear transform in which bytes in each row of the 4×4array (state) received from the Sub Bytes stage are shifted cyclicallyto the left. The number of places each byte is shifted differs for eachrow in the 4×4 array.

In Mix Columns 320, the results from Shift Rows 320 passes through abit-linear transform in which each column of the 4×4 array (state) istreated as a polynomial over a binary Galois Field (GF)(2⁸) and is thenmultiplied modulo x⁴+1 with a fixed polynomial c(x)=3x³+x²+x+2.

A last aes round differs from the other aes rounds in that it omits thefourth stage, that is, Mix Columns.

An exclusive OR (XOR) logic 324 after the Mix Columns stage 320 performsan exclusive OR function on the round key from the expanded key and theresult of the aes round.

The following aes macro instruction may be issued to perform aesencryption using a 128-bit key based on aes FIPS Publication 197:

REG[i] = aes(REG[j],        key-size = 128,        #rounds = 10,       op = encrypt,        special_last_round = true)

The 128-bit Key is stored in register 0 308 in the register file 304prior to the issue of the aes instruction. The parameters, that is, 128,10, encrypt, true are stored in the control register 322 for use by eachaes round. The aes instruction performs 10 aes rounds. Withspecial_last_round set to ‘true’, the mix column transform stage 320 ofthe aes round is skipped on the last round, that is, round 10.

For example, the following aes instruction may be issued to perform aesdecryption using a 192-bit key based on aes FIPS Publication 197:

REG[i] = aes(REG[j],        key-size = 192,        #rounds = 12,       op = decrypt,        special_last_round = true)

The 128 Least Significant Bits (LSBs) of the Key are stored in register0 308 in the register file 304 and the 64 Most Significant Bits (MSBs)of the 192-bit Key are stored in register 1 310 of the register file 304prior issuing the aes instruction. The special_last_round is set to‘true’ to indicate that the inverse mix column transform stage 320 ofthe aes round is to be skipped on the last round, that is, round 12.This assumes that the inverse code to perform decryption takes the sameform as encryption.

As the number of rounds parameter may be configured as ‘1’, this allowsa separate aes instruction to be issued for each aes round. Thus,instead of just performing a standard number of aes rounds based on keysize, a non-standard number of rounds may be performed.

Instead of issuing one aes instruction to perform the standard number ofrounds for a particular key size, a separate aes instruction may beissued for each round, as shown below in Table 1.

TABLE 1 REG[j] = REG[j] {circumflex over ( )} K For (i = 1 thru 9){ LoadREG[0] = K[i]; REG[j] = aes(REG[j],       key-size =128,      #rounds=1,       op=encrypt,       special_last_round=false) }Load REG[0] = K[10]; REG[j] = aes(REG[j],     key-size=128,    #rounds=1,     op=encrypt,     special_last_round=true)

This example performs a 128-bit AES encrypt with a key whose expandedkey is represented as {K[1], K[2], . . . K[10]}. The number of rounds isselected to be ‘1’. The round key (portion of the expanded key) isloaded into a register in the register file prior to issuing the aesinstruction for each aes round. This avoids the need for an on-the-flykey scheduler 300 to be included in the general purpose processor 101 togenerate the expanded key from the key. Instead a key scheduler togenerate the expanded key from the key may be implemented in softwareand each portion of the expanded key (round key) may be loaded into theregisters prior to each iteration of the loop that issues the aesinstruction for a single aes round.

When the aes instruction has the parameter for the number rounds set to‘1’, the temporary key registers 324, 326 are bypassed and the round keyis loaded directly into the block state 314.

In this example, as the portion of the expanded key (round key) for theround is input directly from the register file 304, an XOR instructionis issued to perform the XOR operation prior to entering the loop forperforming the aes round by issuing a separate aes instruction for eachaes round.

Through the use of the single round aes instruction, the aes instructionmay be used to generate variants of AES with different number of roundsand key schedules, that is, variants of AES not defined by FIPSPublication 197. Thus, the single round option provides a flexible aesinstruction.

In this embodiment the logic performs one aes round and may beimplemented as a hardware state machine sequence. In another embodiment,the logic may be partially implemented as a micro-program stored in aRead Only Memory (ROM).

In this embodiment, 10 general purpose registers are used to store theexpanded key. Although general purpose processors may include 16 generalpurpose registers, other embodiments may reduce the number of generalpurpose registers used to less than 10. For example, in anotherembodiment, load instructions are issued to load a set of round keys ofthe expanded key stored in memory into the general purpose registers.For example, 4 general purpose registers XMM[4:0] may be used to store asubset of the expanded key that is stored in memory. Load instructionsare issued to load XMM[2:3] registers from memory while readingregisters XMM[1:0] and read/write pointers move in lock-step modulo 4.This provides better usage of the register file while trading off loadand memory operations.

FIGS. 4A-4B is a flow graph illustrating the flow of an aes instructionthrough the execution unit shown in FIG. 3.

At block 400, the execution waits for an aes instruction. In oneembodiment in a general purpose processor with a register file having aplurality of 128-bit registers, the AES instruction has the followingformat:

REG[dest] = aes(REG[src],        key-size={128, 192, 256},       #rounds={1,10,12,14},        op={encrypt/decrypt},       special_last_round={true/false} )

If an AES instruction has been decoded by the fetch and decode unit 206,processing continues with block 402. If not, processing remains in block400 waiting for an aes instruction.

At block 402, during the instruction decode by the fetch and decode unit206, the key size (key-size), the number of rounds (#rounds), operation(op) and special last round parameters (special_last_round) are storedin the control register 322 for use in performing the operationsassociated with the aes instruction. For example, in one embodiment,fields (key_size, mds, op, use_NULL_col) in the control register (C_reg)store the following parameters for the AES instruction:

-   -   C_reg.key_size=key_size;    -   C_reg.rnds=rounds;    -   C_reg.op=op;    -   C_reg.use_NULL_col=special_last_round;

The key size parameter stored in the control register 322 is used todetermine which register(s) 308, 310 in the register file 304 store thekey. In an embodiment, if the key size is 128-bits the key is stored inregister 0 308 and if the key size is greater than 128-bits, the key isstored in register 0 308 and register 1 310. Dependent on the key size,the key is loaded from the register(s) 308, 310 in the register file 304to the temporary key register(s) 324, 326 in the execution unit 210 foruse by the aes instruction. Processing continues with block 404.

At block 404, if the number of rounds parameter (c_reg.rnds) is greaterthan 1, processing continues with block 406. If not, processingcontinues with block 422 to process the last round (that is, round 10,12, 14 or 1).

At block 406, the 128-bit input (state) to the round is added with thetemporary key (128-bit key) using bitwise XOR to produce a 128-bitintermediate value (state). The result of the XOR operation is stored asthe 128-bit block state. As the initial state used by the first round isstored in the source register 306 in the register file, the first roundperforms the XOR operation using the state loaded from the sourceregister 306. Processing continues with block 408.

At block 408, the on-the-fly scheduler 300 computes a round key for theround from the stored in the temporary register(s) 324, 326. Processingcontinues with block 410.

At block 410, a determination is made as to whether the operation to beperformed by the aes instruction is encrypt or decrypt based on thestate of the encrypt/decrypt parameter stored in the control registers.If the operation is to encrypt, processing continues with block 412. Ifthe operation is to decrypt, processing continues with block 434.

At block 412, a substitution operation is performed on the 128-bit blockstate that is, the result from block 406 or 418. Each byte of the128-bit block state is substituted with another byte value that can bestored and retrieved from a lookup table also referred to as asubstitution box or “S-Box”. The S-box takes some number of input bits,m, and transforms them into some number of output bits, n and istypically implemented as a lookup table. The result is stored as a128-bit block state. Processing continues with block 414.

At block 414, the 128-bit block state (4×4 array) passes through abit-linear transform in which bytes in each row of the 4×4 array areshifted cyclically to the left. The number of places each byte isshifted differs for each row in the 4×4 array. Processing continues withblock 416.

At block 416, the 128-bit block state (4×4 array) passes through passesthrough a bit-linear transform in which each column of the 4×4 array(state) is treated as a polynomial over GF(2⁸) and is then multipliedmodulo x⁴+1 with a fixed polynomial c(x)=3x³+x²+x+2. Processingcontinues with block 418.

At block 418, the 128-bit block state input to the next round is addedto the 128-bit schedule generated for the next round using bitwise XORto produce a 128-bit block state. Processing continues with block 420.

At block 420, if there is another round to be processed which is not thelast round, processing continues with block 408. The number of rounds tobe processed is based on the total number of rounds to be processedstored in the control register and the number of rounds alreadycompleted. If all rounds except the last round have been completed,processing continues with block 422 to process the last round.

At block 422, the on-the-fly key scheduler 300 generates the round keyfrom the key stored in the temporary key for the last round of an aesinstruction for 10, 12 or 14 rounds. Processing continues with block424.

At block 424, if the operation stored in the control register for theaes instruction decoded by the instruction decoder is encryption,processing continues with block 426. If not, processing continues withblock 440 to perform decryption.

At block 426, an S-box lookup is performed for the last round in asimilar manner to the S-box lookup discussed in conjunction with block412. Processing continues with block 428.

At block 428, a shift rows operation is performed for the last round ina similar manner to that discussed in conjunction with the other roundsin block 414. Processing continues with block 430.

At block 430, the bock state result from block 428 is added to the128-bit key schedule generated for the last round (10, 12 or 14) or oneround (if the number of rounds is one) using bitwise XOR to produce a128-bit block state. Processing continues with block 432.

At block 432, the result of the encryption (or decryption) operation isstored in the destination register in the register file. Processing forthe aes instruction is complete. Table 2 below shows an example of theresult of performing AES encryption using a 128-bit key on a 128-bitblock input.

TABLE 2 128-bit Input: 00112233445566778899aabbccddeeff (Hexadecimal)128-bit Key: 000102030405060708090a0b0c0d0e0f (Hexadecimal) 128-bitResult: 69c4e0d86a7b0430d8cdb78070b4c55a (Hexadecimal)

At block 434, the operation to be performed is decryption. Asubstitution operation is performed on the 128-bit block state byperforming an inverse s-box lookup as defined by the AES standard.Processing continues with block 436.

At block 436, an inverse shift rows operation is performed as defined bythe AES standard. Processing continues with block 438.

At block 438, an inverse shift rows operation is performed as defined bythe AES standard. Processing continues with block 418.

At block 440, the operation to be performed is decryption. Asubstitution operation is performed on the 128-bit block state for thelast round by performing an inverse s-box lookup as defined by the AESstandard. Processing continues with block 442.

At block 442, an inverse shift rows operation is performed for the lastround as defined by the AES standard. Processing continues with block430.

In one embodiment, the blocks in the flowgraph of FIGS. 4A and 4B may beimplemented as a hardware state machine sequence. In another embodimentportions of the blocks may be implemented as a micro-program that may bestored in Read Only Memory (ROM). The embodiment in which the blocks areimplemented as a hardware state machine sequence may provide higherperformance.

In another embodiment, support for the standard aes numbers of rounds,that is, 10, 12, 14 may only be provided. However, support forperforming one round as discussed in the embodiment in FIGS. 4A-4B maybe provided by a “dormant option”. For example, for any number of roundsrequested other than the standard aes number of rounds, that is, 10, 12,14, a no operation (no-op) is performed. Thus, the interface is ready tosupport other numbers of rounds, if required for futureencryption/decryption standards. For example, if new standards forhashing or MAC-ing, attacks on AES are introduced, support for differentnumbers of rounds may be easily added.

In yet another embodiment, microcode may be used to implement roundsthat are less than the aes standard number of rounds.

It will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art that methodsinvolved in embodiments of the present invention may be embodied in acomputer program product that includes a computer usable medium. Forexample, such a computer usable medium may consist of a read only memorydevice, such as a Compact Disk Read Only Memory (CD ROM) disk orconventional ROM devices, or a computer diskette, having a computerreadable program code stored thereon.

While embodiments of the invention have been particularly shown anddescribed with references to embodiments thereof, it will be understoodby those skilled in the art that various changes in form and details maybe made therein without departing from the scope of embodiments of theinvention encompassed by the appended claims.

1. A processor comprising: a plurality of cores; a level 1 (L1)instruction cache to store instructions, including an AdvancedEncryption Standard (AES) last encryption round instruction; a level 1(L1) data cache to store data; instruction fetch circuitry to fetch theinstructions from the L1 instruction cache; decode circuitry to decodethe AES last encryption round instruction; a first 128-bit sourceregister to store input data to be encrypted by a last round of an AESencryption operation; a second 128-bit source register to store a roundkey to be used for the last round of the AES encryption operation; anexecution circuit including AES execution circuitry to execute the AESlast encryption round instruction to perform the last round of the AESencryption operation, the AES encryption operation to encrypt input dataread from the first 128-bit source register using the round key readfrom the second 128-bit source register, and to store results of thelast round of the AES encryption operation in a destination register. 2.The processor of claim 1, wherein the last round of the AES encryptionoperation includes a byte substitution transform.
 3. The processor ofclaim 1, wherein the last round of the AES encryption operation includesa shift rows transform.
 4. The processor of claim 2, wherein the bytesubstitution transform comprises a substitution of one or more bytesusing data retrieved from a substitution table.
 5. The processor ofclaim 2, wherein a result of the byte substitution transform comprisesan array of substituted data.
 6. The processor of claim 3, wherein theshift rows transform is to shift data in each row of a first array by aspecified amount to produce a second array.
 7. The processor of claim 1further comprising: a scheduler to schedule operations to be executed bythe processor.
 8. The processor of claim 1, wherein the decoder is todecode the AES last round encryption instruction into a plurality ofmicrooperations to be processed by the execution circuit to execute theperform the last round of the AES encryption operation.